I want to indent an entire text file with n spaces in VIM.
My current method is:
Go to the beginning of the file
Type Ctrl + V
Press the down key ↓ or the j key to select the lines to indent
Type Shift + I
Type the Space Bar key n times
Press Esc
Is there a way to accomplish this without using visual mode and having to manually go through the entire file?
Use a Global Substitution
Assuming you want to indent four spaces, you can do this:
:%s/^/ /
This will effectively insert four spaces at the start of each line. Adjust the number of spaces on the right-hand side of the substitution expression to suit your indentation needs.
Using Visual Mode
Alternatively, you can go into normal mode and then:
gg
SHIFT+V
SHIFT+G
SHIFT+>
to indent the entire file by the value of shiftwidth.
how about:
:%s/^/(you count n spaces here)/
A :normal variant that adds two spaces at the beginning of every line:
:%norm 0i<space><space><CR>
Another :normal variant that adds two spaces before the first printable character of every line:
:%norm I<space><space><CR>
You can indent a set of lines like this:
:1,44>
If you press ctrl-g, it will give you the last line of the file.
Related
I'm found of Ctrl-V select your block I type yours characters ESC
with vim, that helps a lot to indent a block by adding few characters on its left.
Very useful to put > when you forgotten them, for example!
But how to do the opposite?
Unindent a block, but the same way I've indented it: by removing few contiguous columns of selected lines?
# I have this text:
ABC%/1234
DEF$-542
GHI§*756
JKL£^288
I want to shift left my text for two columns for some of its lines.
Remove the:
%/
$-
§*
characters that are disturbing me on columns 7 and 8 on three of the four lines of data.
Starting with the caret on the % of my text,
what block command and other command should I type to achieve the result I'm willing? This one:
# I have this text:
ABC1234
DEF542
GHI756
JKL£^288
Visual-block mode is just a special case of visual mode: once you have selected the text you want to delete, well… press d to delete it.
The various visual modes are introduced in chapter 4 of the user manual, :help usr_04, with the example for visual-block mode being pretty much exactly what you want to do:
<C-v><motion>d
I would suggest you take the time to learn Vim properly instead of trying random commands found on the web:
:help user-manual
I like the Markdown style underlining, but I want it to line up with the above line.
So for example if I have this:
heading one
_
^ cursor here
I could (in normal mode) just type (something)i=<ESC><ESC>, and the result would be:
heading one
===========
^ cursor here
Does anyone know what I can use for (something)?
It doesn't really matter to me where my cursor is/ends up, so for example I could be on the last position of the heading one line and do some operation to achieve the same result. I'm picky, but not that picky.
If you use visual selections you can then use r to replace every character in said visual selection.
So if you start with your cursor on the "heading one" line type.
yypVr=
Would copy the line and then replace every character with an equal sign.
kyypv$r=j
go up one line
yank it
paste it below
visually select the line
replace every character with =
Turn it into a mapping if you ned it often:
nnoremap <key> kyypv$r=j
I'd suggest you do this on the line to underline itself and not on the line below, though:
nnoremap <key> yypv$r=
Intro
In gVim under Windows i have to replace insert and mod in each string of file some character in a specifics position.
Example
QWAER;PA 0X000055;123WAAAA
TYUIO;PA 0Y000056;123VAAAA
need to become
QWAE#;PAX000055;123;WAAAA
TYUI#;PAY000056;123;VAAAA
modify char 5 in #
delete char 9,10
insert ; in original pos 22 or after delete in pos 20
More Info
Usually I do
Put cursor and beginning of text to select
Press CTRL-V (CTRL-Q in gVim) to begin select of the column
keep press SHIFT and selecte the interested area
the go at the end of file
then do the replace insert or modification.
(This is where I learn about Keyboard-only column block selection in GVim Win32, or why does Ctrl-Q not emulate Ctrl-V when mswin.vim is included?
and here i learn how to do the insert(http://pivotallabs.com/column-edit-mode-in-vi/)
It's not a correct way to do the things.
In vim i can do the replaceof a fange of rows, and so on using commands.
I think that should be possible to use commands to replace a portion of each string but i have no Knoledge about those command.
this is the main idea
Replacing alternate line in vi text file with a particular string
Question
Is there a way to do the operations using commands with absolute position and not selection.
Thanks
:{range}normal 5|r#9|2x20|i;
Does what you want on the lines covered by {range}:
5|r# " go to column 5 and replace the character with #
9|2x " go to column 9 and cut 2 characters
20|i; " go to column 20 and insert a ; to the right
So…
:5,25norm 5|r#9|2x20|i; would apply that transformation to lines 5 to 25,
:.,$norm 5|r#9|2x20|i; would apply that transformation from the current line to the last,
:'<,'>norm 5|r#9|2x20|i; would apply that transformation to the current (or last) visual selection,
:'{,'}norm 5|r#9|2x20|i; would apply that transformation to the current "paragraph",
:%norm 5|r#9|2x20|i; would apply that transformation to the whole buffer,
and so on…
You could also record it, let's say in register q:
qq
5|r#
9|2x
20|i;<Esc>
q
and play it back on {range}:
:{range}#q
Or spend 30 minutes trying to come up with the right :s// command…
Reference:
:help range
:help :normal
:help |
:help r
:help x
:help i
:h recording
Suppose I have the piece of text below with the cursor staying at the first A currently,
AAAA
BBB
CC
D
How can I add spaces in front of each line to make it like, and it would be great if the number of columns of spaces can be specified on-the-fly, e.g., two here.
AAAA
BBB
CC
D
I would imagine there is a way to do it quickly in visual mode, but any ideas?
Currently I'm copying the first column of text in visual mode twice, and replace the entire two column to spaces, which involves > 5 keystrokes, too cumbersome.
Constraint:
Sorry that I didn't state the question clearly and might create some confusions.
The target is only part of a larger file, so it would be great if the number of rows and columns starting from the first A can be specified.
Edit:
Thank both #DeepYellow and #Johnsyweb, apparently >} and >ap are all great tips that I was not aware of, and they both could be valid answers before I clarified on the specific requirement for the answer to my question, but in any case, #luser droog 's answer stands out as the only viable answer. Thank you everyone!
I'd use :%s/^/ /
You could also specify a range of lines :10,15s/^/ /
Or a relative range :.,+5s/^/ /
Or use regular expressions for the locations :/A/,/D/>.
For copying code to paste on SO, I usually use sed from the terminal sed 's/^/ /' filename
Shortcut
I just learned a new trick for this. You enter visual mode v, select the region (with regular movement commands), then hit : which gives you this:
:'<,'>
ready for you to type just the command part of the above commands, the marks '< and '> being automatically set to the bounds of the visual selection.
To select and indent the current paragraph:
vip>
or
vip:>
followed by enter.
Edit:
As requested in the comments, you can also add spaces to the middle of a line using a regex quantifier \{n} on the any meta-character ..
:%s/^.\{14}/& /
This adds a space 14 chars from the left on each line. Of course % could be replaced by any of the above options for specifying the range of an ex command.
When on the first A, I'd go in block visual mode ctrl-v, select the lines you want to modify, press I (insert mode with capital i), and apply any changes I want for the first line. Leaving visual mode esc will apply all changes on the first line to all lines.
Probably not the most efficient on number of key-strokes, but gives you all the freedom you want before leaving visual mode. I don't like it when I have to specify by hand the line and column range in a regex command.
I'd use >}.
Where...
>: Shifts right and
}: means until the end of the paragraph
Hope this helps.
Ctrl + v (to enter in visual mode)
Use the arrow keys to select the lines
Shift + i (takes you to insert mode)
Hit space keys or whatever you want to type in front of the selected lines.
Save the changes (Use :w) and now you will see the changes in all the selected lines.
I would do like Nigu. Another solution is to use :normal:
<S-v> to enter VISUAL-LINE mode
3j or jjj or /D<CR> to select the lines
:norm I<Space><Space>, the correct range ('<,'>) being inserted automatically
:normal is probably a bit overkill for this specific case but sometimes you may want to perform a bunch of complex operations on a range of lines.
You can select the lines in visual mode, and type >. This assumes that you've set your tabs up to insert spaces, e.g.:
setl expandtab
setl shiftwidth=4
setl tabstop=4
(replace 4 with your preference in indentation)
If the lines form a paragraph, >ap in normal mode will shift the whole paragraph above and below the current position.
Let's assume you want to shift a block of code:
setup the count of spaces used by each shift command, :set shiftwidth=1, default is 8.
press Ctrl+v in appropriate place and move cursor up k or down j to select some area.
press > to shift the block and . to repeat the action until desired position (if cursor is missed, turn back with h or b).
Another thing you could try is a macro. If you do not know already, you start a macro with q and select the register to save the macro... so to save your macro in register a you would type qa in normal mode.
At the bottom there should be something that says recording. Now just do your movement as you would like.
So in this case you wanted 2 spaces in front of every line, so with your cursor already at the beginning of the first line, go into insert mode, and hit space twice. Now hit escape to go to normal mode, then down to the next line, then to the beginning of that line, and press q. This ends and saves the macro
(so that it is all in one place, this is the full list of key combinations you would do, where <esc> is when you press the escape key, and <space> is where you hit the space bar: qai<space><space><esc>j0q This saves the macro in register a )
Now to play the macro back you do # followed by the register you saved it in... so in this example #a. Now the second line will also have 2 spaces in front of them.
Macros can also run multiple times, so if I did 3#a the macro would run 3 times, and you would be done with this.
I like using macros for this like this because it is more intuitive to me, because I can do exactly what I want it to do, and just replay it multiple times.
I was looking for similar solution, and use this variation
VG:norm[N]I
N = numbers of spaces to insert.
V=Crtl-V
*** Notice *** put space immediate after I.
How can I fill the remainder of a line with the specified character up to a certain column using Vim? For example, imagine that the cursor is on column four and I want to fill the remainder of the current line with dashes up to column 80. How would I do that?
You can do 80Ax<Esc>d80| for a simpler solution.
Here's a function to implement what you ask, and slightly more.
It fills the line from its current end of line, rather than the cursor position
It forces a single space between what's currently on the line and the repeated chars
It allows you to specify any string to fill the rest of the line with
It uses vim's textwidth setting to decide how long the line should be
(rather than just assuming 80 chars)
The function is defined as follows:
" fill rest of line with characters
function! FillLine( str )
" set tw to the desired total length
let tw = &textwidth
if tw==0 | let tw = 80 | endif
" strip trailing spaces first
.s/[[:space:]]*$//
" calculate total number of 'str's to insert
let reps = (tw - col("$")) / len(a:str)
" insert them, if there's room, removing trailing spaces (though forcing
" there to be one)
if reps > 0
.s/$/\=(' '.repeat(a:str, reps))/
endif
endfunction
Insert that into your .vimrc, and make a mapping to it, e.g.
map <F12> :call FillLine( '-' )
Then you can press F12 to apply the hyphens to the current line
Note: this could probably be easily extended to act on a selection in VISUAL mode, but currently works for single lines only.*
If I understand the question correctly, this can be accomplished like this: in normal mode subtract the cursor's current column position from the desired ending column, then type the result followed by 'i' to enter insert mode, then the character you want to fill the space with. End by returning to normal mode. For example, with the cursor at column four in normal mode, if you wanted to fill the rest of the line up to column 80 with dashes, type 76i- then Esc or Ctrl-[ to return to normal mode. This should result in 76 dashes starting in column 4 and ending in column 79.
If you have the virtualedit option set to block or all, you can create a visual selection (even over empty space) up to the desired column:
v80| (if virtualedit=all) or
<c-v>80| (if virtualedit=block)
Then replace the selected area with dashes:
r-
It's probably helpful to start visual mode after the last character in the line by hitting l to avoid overwriting the last character in the line. If you are not using virtualedit=all, then you need to set virtualedit+=onemore so you can move one character beyond the end of line in normal mode.
One of the other answers here is: 80Ax<Esc>d80|. I initially started using it as a key mapping like this:
nnoremap <leader>- 80A-<Esc>d80<bar>
...but I didn't like how it leaves the cursor at the end of the line. Also, for narrow windows (e.g. just a little wider than 80 cells), it causes the entire window to scroll horizontally because the cursor briefly jumps to the end of the long line before it's trimmed back to 80. This is partially resolved by returning to the beginning of the line:
nnoremap <leader>- 80A-<Esc>d80<bar>0
...but then the screen will "flash" briefly while the cursor jumps offscreen and back (thus scrolling the window briefly to the right and back). To prevent this, we can temporarily use reverse insert mode (:h revins or :h ri) to keep the cursor onscreen while appending. Here's the full command as a key mapping:
nnoremap <leader>- :set ri<cr>80A-<esc>81<bar>d$0:set nori<cr>
This answer answers your question. Just replace len computation with your desired column number (+/- 1 may be, I never remember), and remove the enclosing double-quotes added by the substitution.
Using the textwidth value is also possible. It allows for different maximum line widths depending on filetype (check :h 'tw'). Here is what I now use, it appends a space after existing line content if present and will prompt for the string to use for the pattern:
function! FillLine() abort
if &textwidth
let l:str = input('FillLine>')
.s/\m\(\S\+\)$/\1 /e " Add space after content (if present).
" Calculate how many repetitions will fit.
let l:lastcol = col('$')-1 " See :h col().
if l:lastcol > 1
let l:numstr = float2nr(floor((&textwidth-l:lastcol)/len(l:str)))
else
let l:numstr = float2nr(floor(&textwidth/len(l:str)))
endif
if l:numstr > 0
.s/\m$/\=(repeat(l:str, l:numstr))/ " Append repeated pattern.
endif
else
echohl WarningMsg
echom "FillLine requires nonzero textwidth setting"
echohl None
endif
endfunction
You can map it for quick access of course. I like:
nnoremap <Leader>' :call FillLine()<Cr>
Note that the calculation assumes simple ASCII characters are being inserted. For more complicated strings, len(l:str) might not work. From :h strlen():
If you want to count the number of multi-byte characters use strchars().
Also see len(), strdisplaywidth() and strwidth().
You can insert first your dashes and then go to the first character and enter your text in replace mode: 80i-Esc0R
if you don't want to type the text, first delete the line with 0D, use 80i-Esc to insert the dashes and 0RCTRL+r " to paste the contents of the unamed register in replace mode.
I actually stumbled across this looking to align columns. Just in case anyone else does the same, this thread might be useful: How to insert spaces up to column X to line up things in columns?